


Fundamentally Loathsome

by turnonmyheels



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-29
Updated: 2010-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:49:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnonmyheels/pseuds/turnonmyheels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara and Saul from the end of <i>Exodus Part 2</i> through the beginning of <i>Collaborators</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fundamentally Loathsome

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Greenapricot](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Greenapricot).



> Dark, not shippy, some squick factor

It doesn't take nearly as much as it once did to get her as drunk as she is right now. Leoben hadn't allowed alcohol in her prison.

And right now, Kara's drunk. Drunk enough that they'd kicked her out of the pilot's rec room. Drunk enough that when she swings at the punching bag she misses three times out of five. Drunk enough that her head is swimming, her body tingling, and she can only hear the faintest whisper of Leoben's voice soft and full of lies.

_"I love you, Kara." _

She throws a left hook and misses, again – the tiny drops of blood from the cuts on her hand run together with sweat making her fists slippery and her target harder to hit. She should have taped her hands or put on her gloves but the stinging of the cuts grounds her, keeps her on Galactica -- not there with him.

_"This is our daughter, Kasey."_

For a little while, at least. Nothing can make him -- no it -- completely go away. He's there lurking in the shadows, smiling at her in her dreams, whispering blasphemy and lies and happily-ever-after fairy tales into her ear when her defenses are down. Her defenses have been down since Kasey was presented to her. Kara doesn't think they'll ever come back up again.

"Frak!" Kara shouts and spins around, trying to kick the bag. She misjudges her distance and the angle of her target -- might never pilot again if that doesn't improve, frakkin' thing is vertical, how hard can that be -- and misses wildly, stumbling then falling and landing on her bad knee. She hears a crack and then pain shoots up to her quads and hamstrings, down her shin and around to her calf, and laughter bubbles out of her as she shifts around to straighten the leg out in front of her.

"Here she is. The finest example of a pilot in the fleet."

Kara throws her head back and laughs. She will not show anything negative in front of Tigh. She manages to stand through the pain in her knee and the laughter that tries to choke her, and fumbles for her canteen. She downs four swallows, grimacing at the metallic twang of the rot gut, forcing her body not to revolt and heave it back up.

"Can I interest you in the deck crew's finest, Saul?" She's not looking at him. She _won't_ look at him. She stretches out her arm and waits.

Tigh stalks closer, his steps are steady but he's having trouble keeping from swaying when he stands still. He snatches the canteen out of her hand and leans into her personal space. The stench of Ambrosia on his breath clashes with the rot gut she's been drinking and nearly makes her wince, but she holds her ground. "We're not on the ground anymore, Captain Thrace. You'll address me as Colonel Tigh, or sir. I'm your superior, and don't you forget it."

Kara flashes to a memory of a better time and repeats words she's said before. "Yessir, Superior Asshole, sir." She smirks, then throws a punch at Tigh's face. She misses the nose and hits his ear, and still she can't -- _won't_ \-- stop laughing. Not even when he punches her in retaliation.

He nails her right on the nose -- she hears the crunch of cartilage, feels the delicate tissue swell and throb with pain. It's exactly what she needed -- and she's dumbstruck that it's Tigh who gives it to her.

"I think you need some time in the Brig, Captain -- so you can sleep it off." He moves in closer until he's looming over her -- she's forgotten that he's more than a head taller than her. A small line of blood trickles from Kara's nose; she licks it away while she stares at the gauze covering his eye.

"You think so?" She grabs her canteen out of his hand and downs another swallow then screws the lid on tight and tosses it aside. She closes the distance between them. He's still swaying and she rocks back on her heels and forward on the balls of her feet moving with him. Mocking him. "Think you can make me go? I'm not even in the frakking military anymore. I'm a civilian." Kara closes in pressing herself against Tigh -- unable to tear her eyes off the make-do patch.

"You're no more civilian than I am," Tigh growls and she watches him stare at the blood trickling from her nose. Sees him tracking her tongue as she licks at the blood again, smearing it over the bow of her lip. He wants to hit her again, she can tell. She wants it too.

"Not anymore." Kara peels the bottom strip of tape from the gauze covering his eye and puts it in her pocket.

"Then I guess those no fraternization rules don't apply." Tigh slaps her hand away as she reaches for the gauze again, then grabs her wrist, squeezing until she can feel the bones grinding together. He twists her arm behind her back and digs his nails into the delicate skin of her wrist.

Kara draws in a sharp breath and rocks back on her heels as he leans forward and Tigh nearly falls on top of her, which is funny, so frakking funny that she has to head butt him, make him bleed too.

"Bitch!" Tigh mutters in a deadly whisper and pitches himself forward knocking her down and pinning her to the floor beneath him.

Kara laughs and struggles; punching, kicking, she knows she could kick his ass if she were sober, but she's not been sober since she got back to Galactica. Back home.

She can feel him, hard against her -- feels his anger. His hate. His fury. His grief. He's given himself over to it, and it matches her own. She twists and struggles and then she's on top, seated in his lap. He's hard and she wants it. Wants anything to take away how she feels right now. She leans forward grinding herself against him and yanks off the last bit of tape, it sticks to the gauze and she shoves that in her pocket too.

He's vulnerable beneath her. Exposed. The scar showing. Even with the patch he can't hide it, evidence for the fleet to see what he sacrificed for them.

It fascinates her; she can't help but trace her fingers over the lid – watching as it sags, obviously, painfully, empty. She drags her fingers over it again, harder this time, his head tilts back and he groans. He's thrusting up every time she grinds down digging his hands into her hips, rocking her harder against him.

Kara's close, riding the edge – would have already gone over if she wasn't drunk or if there weren't layers of clothing between them. She leans forward until they're face to face and locks her feet behind his legs to give herself more leverage. Her fingers trail down away from his ruined eye, to his jaw, and tilts his head so he's exposed fully to her. She runs her lips over the brow, along the bone below the eye, then licks across the lid. She wants to see inside, see the hollow, empty space. Touch it with her fingers, her lips, her tongue but he won't open it – won't let her in.

He rolls them, shoving his hand inside her shirt squeezing her breast hard enough to leave bruises for days as he ruts against her. It's enough to push her over the edge. Her hands scramble down his back trying to get inside his pants -- but they're both too drunk. Too angry. Too close to the edge. He stiffens above her and it's over. He rolls off and lays panting on his back.

Kara finds the canteen, drinks enough to make her swallow past her gag reflex and hands it to him. She struggles to her feet and starts punching the bag again.

This time she hits it four out of every five times.

~*~

It takes longer than she expects for the Old Man to call her into his office for one of their special pep talks. He doesn't give her any warning, just calls her in. No time to sober up. Or shower. Or put on a uniform. She sits across from him, her head spinning from rot gut, reeking of his XO, and she promises she'll straighten up and fly right. She laughs as she makes her way to the head to wash the stench off.

She wonders when bitter laughter replaced bitter tears.

~*~

She won't frak him in his quarters -- not that he's ever so much as invited her inside -- and the barracks are strictly off limits. That leaves them with shadowy corners of the Galactica, the head at odd hours, and once in the gym with the sound of Lee's jump rope echoing in their ears.

Thwap, thwap, thwap.

She rides him fast, hard. He digs his fingers into the scar on her belly and calls her weak, coward, traitor. Weak for being taken. Coward for not escaping. Traitor for being friends with Helo and Sharon.

Thwap, thwap, thwap.

It makes her snarl, makes her scream. He gets a hand around her mouth before the sound escapes -- Lee would be sure to investigate if he heard.

She grabs him by his shoulder and yanks backward landing with a thud on her back in the space between the thwaps of Lee's rope. He fraks her to the rhythm and whispers in her ear.

"You're a traitor for giving up a piece of yourself to the Cylons." Tigh rakes his non-regulation nails into the scar until she bleeds.

She presses her fingertips to where his eye used to be -- she wants to yank off the patch but he always beats her to it these days -- and snarls, "What does that make you?"

Thwap, thwap, thwap.

"At least they can't make more of themselves with what they took from me. You -- they could make a new army with what you let them have. A new army of skin jobs that look like us. Like you."

He's got her bent in half and if his body is saggy where Anders is tight it doesn't matter anymore because he touches her in hate, in anger, in pain -- the only language she understands anymore.

"At least my husband wasn't frakking them and betraying the Colony."

He stops thrusting, fury sparking in his eyes, face flushing with more than drink, more than lust. He wraps his hands around her throat and squeezes.

Thwap, thwap, thwap.

She pushes up, frakking herself against him. She can't breathe, he's blocking the air to her lungs and the blood to her brain. She sees spots and feels her body tingle, rides him faster, harder. She stares at the sagging, scarred eyelid and wishes everyone could see what she lost. Wishes her scars were visible, like his. She starts to come and he still doesn't let go.

When consciousness returns, she's lying on the boxing ring mat, come puddling beneath her. He's gone. And still she can hear Lee in the background.

Thwap, thwap, thwap.

~*~

Tigh's in the Rec Room holding court. His words slur together as he talks about homemade bombs strapped to chests. Detention and losing his eye. How the traitors -- the one's that sided with the Cylons -- need to be punished to the full extent of Colonial Law. Trial by a jury of their peers followed by execution.

The words spark a fire in her gut that she hasn't felt since the third time she killed Leoben. She grabs the empty chair next to Tigh, spins it around and straddles it. "Hit me," she says, nodding to her empty glass. "And deal me in. I'm going to give you losers an ass kicking."

Hot Dog groans but deals her in anyway, she throws some chips on the table and tosses back her drink in one swallow. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and picks up where Saul left off. Anders, who's been sitting quietly in the corner with Helo and Sharon, gets up and leaves. Helo and Sharon follow him out. Not a one of them so much as raised a hand in her direction when she entered the room.

Frak them. Frak the whole crew.

"None of you." She nods to the room filled with people who'd stayed on Galactica, except her and Tigh. "Not a frakkin' one of you has any idea what it was like down there." She sees Tigh refill her glass from the corner of her eye and lets bile spill from her mouth. None of them want to hear it, she can tell but she doesn't care. Hasn't cared about anything since Kasey left her arms and went to her mother's.

They play hand after hand of Triad -- Kara's got a pile of credits higher than her glass and two empty bottles on the floor between her and Tigh's feet. The others leave one by one until it's just her and Tigh, a full bottle on the table, and tempers flaring high. She lights the two cigars she won and hands one to Tigh. He puts it between his lips and sucks. She stares at the glowing red ember and pulls harder on her own cigar.

"They think they're better than us 'cause they stayed." Kara says and she's surprised by how little she slurs her words.

Tigh puffs on his cigar, breathes out the smoke, then raises his glass and throws it back. "Not a gods damned one of them would do what I did. They don't have the balls."

Kara balances her chair on two legs and puts both feet on the table. "You're right." She tilts her head back -- drink in one hand, cigar in the other -- and stares at the ceiling. She drinks and smokes slowly, savoring the acrid flavor -- there's only so many cigars left in the galaxy and she should appreciate the few that are left. She snorts out a laugh and turns to look at Tigh.

He's watching the liquor slosh in the bottle, not even bothering with a glass. "You're gods damned right I'm right." He stubs out the remainder of his cigar and turns his whole body to look at her. She's the only one he'll let sit on his blind side but she doesn't think he's noticed that. "We're doing something about it. Top Secret. Orders from the President."

"Yeah?" Kara asks and leans forward until all the chair legs are on the ground. "What are you doing?"

"Trial by peers." Tigh sneers. "Out the airlock."

Kara stands across from him, traces her finger over the gauze and tape, then straddles him. "So say we all." He grabs her hair and pulls her close, close enough that their mouths touch, and bites her lips until she bleeds.

"So say we all." He echoes and shoves her off. She lands on the floor banging her head against the metal decking. He looms over her, unfastens his belt, his button, pulls his zipper down, shoves his pants to his ankles, and straddles her chest.

He runs his cock over the blood on her mouth before shoving his way in. She lets him, but makes him pay, using more teeth than lips or tongue. Her own hands scrabble furiously at her pants. She manages to open them and gets a hand inside. She plunges two fingers in her cunt and thumbs her clit fast and furious.

Tigh presses his thumbs into the hinge of her jaw forcing her mouth open wider, too wide to use her teeth. He fucks in, hips snapping, and she's close -- so frakking close -- then he floods her mouth, pulls out, and shoots the rest on her face. In her eye. It burns.

She curses him as she breaks apart under her own hand.

"I hate you," he snarls as he stands fastening his pants. He watches his come run down her face, she catches as much as she can with her tongue and struggles to her own feet. When they're standing toe to toe she spits in his face.

"Join the club." Kara turns on her heel and leaves him there. His come and her spit dripping slowly off the gauze covering his eye. Tigh grabs the bottle off the table, sits back down, and drinks.


End file.
